Second District Candidates meet

The two candidates for Congress in Iowa’s second district met in a forum today at the University of Northern Iowa, and Democrat Julie Thomas says the economy’s still moving in the wrong direction. She says we can help by providing infrastructure projects to southeast Iowa, as they’ll build the economy and bring back jobs. Thomas says the economy’s the main reason she decided to enter the campaign, and says president Bush’s one-ponit-three-trillion dollar tax cut should have been targeted at the middle and lower classes, and not the wealthiest Americans. Her opponent, republican Jim Leach, said he doesn’t favor any tax increase, though he might change his position if the U.S. goes to war. Leach says he’s not comfortable with using the military as our main presence in world leadership.He says we should be “up front and out front” with the private sector and that means trade, opening up foreign markets — and Leach says he supported NAFTA and wants to give the president trade promotion authority to increase markets for our products. The Libertarian candidate for the second-district seat, Kevin Litten, says shrinking government and letting private citizens decide how to spend their money would boost the economy.